just enough light for the journey

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Joining up with the group over at Five Minute Friday where everyone takes the same one word prompt and let’s the words flow for five minutes. It’s such a grand writing practice and the community is wonderful as well.

Every morning I take several pills.

I take Iron because I’m anemic. I take birth control because I have endometriosis. And I take three little anti-depressant pills because I have Major Depressive Disorder and an Anxiety Disorder.

When I was in my teens I went through many angsty days of ups and downs emotionally. I often wrote poems to express myself. I cried and yelled, trying to work through the foreign soul that is the adolescent life.

I don’t remember if I was in my later years of high school or just into post secondary when I told my parents I think I needed to see a doctor because I was really struggling. I spoke with my family doctor and he prescribed a pill to try. It changed somethings but didn’t seem to be what I needed.

Thankfully I was able to speak with a psychologist and begin attempting to not only work through the deficiencies in what my brain was producing but also what some of the underlying thought patterns might be to help to combat some of my depressed thinking.

We have worked through different medication throughout the years and at the moment I believe I have been on this specific pills for 10 years. I am thankful for the way it helps regulate my body. There have been days that I have missed taking my pills and I can definitely feel life starting to get overwhelming without this working in my system.

I’ve heard of people hating the stigma associated with taking pills for this purpose. I am so sad that there is stigma. For me, it’s like taking insulin when you are a diabetic. I know that I can’t live in this manner (where I am now) without the pills I take every day. I am so thankful for them.

These words are more what I would associate with myself. But what I think of myself and what others think of me are often at odds with one another. I believe this is not only the case with me, but with many others.

I have said in the past that I enjoy going places where people don’t really ‘know’ me, because then I don’t have to live up to any preset expectation.

I don’t mind being the only one going to something, because generally it doesn’t take me long to end up chatting with someone. For some reason I have always felt compelled to talk to the people around me. I don’t think it is odd, until I realize it isn’t what I’ve seen others do a lot of the time.

This may give the impression that I’m confident but the talking seems to be something that I do unconsciously. Perhaps its because I feel awkward in a situation but more often then not I just speak what’s in my head or say a friendly greeting.

When there are big groups of people, I stay to the edge of the crowd. I often keep my head down. And tend to hang out with one or two people. I am not fond of moving around and hanging with other people, except for when I see that there are those who are sitting alone or don’t seem to know anyone. I know what its like to be on the outside. For so many of my growing up years that was me.

I don’t know if confidence is something that shows up on my radar as something that I should be. I know that sometimes I feel like I want to make myself small, almost invisible in the midst of a group. I don’t know what or where that stems from. Its probably based on some deep insecurity…not probably, it is.

I think it would take alot of heart, mind and soul work to become confident. I don’t know if it will ever be a word that is used to describe me.

Joining up with friends over at the Five Minute Friday community to write 5 minutes on one subject. It’s always so much fun reading what others share about the same prompt.

““Preach the message, be ready whether it is convenient or not, reprove, rebuke, exhort with complete patience and instruction.”

2 Timothy‬ ‭4:2‬ ‭NET‬‬

I have always struggled with sharing my faith. Perhaps I have felt that I don’t have the right words, or I didn’t want to offend the person who I am speaking with.

I avoid conflict like my life depends on it. It is one of my biggest weaknesses and at times it feels debilitating. It keeps me from speaking up when I should and feeling frustrated when it was clear I should have opened my mouth.

Sometimes it feels like there are way too many mouths open these days shouting to be heard and to put forth their beliefs. Perhaps my complacency comes from not wanting to add to the noise. But in the midst of lies, darkness and despair, speaking truth and hope, wether quietly or at the top of your voice doesn’t necessarily strike me as a bad thing.

In the traditional words that accompany this verse it says “in and out of season”…which really just means every moment of your day.

Sometimes it’s not convenient. But sharing truth when it is convenient doesn’t require a lot of faith or reliance on the Lord to give you the words.

This is a tribute to two friends who have gone through hard stuff the past two years. They are not alone, but when I think of their stories, they both come up in my mind.

Both have been broken open deeply in ways that they had never imagined might be possible. One by a husband’s illness and the subsequent falling away of all that they had known, and one with a daughter’s illness that brought them near death several times, and where darkness and anxiety sat like weights in their family day and night without a diagnosis.

There is a depth to heartbreak that can only be understood by those who may have experienced something that may have been similar. And yet each story is different. Both still clung to faith, but sometimes all that they could see was a flicker of truth just beyond them (or so it seemed).

There journeys are not over. There is no happy ribbon to put on their stories, because they have been forever changed and their lives shaped by these happenings in their lives. While the daughter did receive a diagnosis, some of her discomfort and pain was never quite explained. The what if continues to linger. And in the other lives, the illness remains, but it has become the new normal. There is rebuilding. But with the stripping away of what once was, there is a renewing of vision. She says its painful, but she sees moment by moment that ways in which she is being molded and shaped. And how her family is being redeemed through this fire.

in the midst of deep pain,. there is hope. mercy. faith.

and though it might seem like just a glimmer or maybe a single spark…it is there.